The Secrets of the Land
by MorriannaLeFaye
Summary: Bilbo turned down Gandalf's offer of adventure, however there is another within the shire who would love nothing more. On the night that the company arrives another ventures forth to speak with her brother, Linda does not live within the boundaries of the Shire she lives in the Old Forest, but the wives (Ent wives) told her that she must go for a song on the wind tells of a sorrow


A/N I do not own LOTR, unfortunately no matter how much I pray and wish I did some times.

Summary: Bilbo turned down Gandalf's offer of adventure, however there is another within the shire who would love nothing more. On the night that the company arrives another ventures forth to speak with her brother, Linda does not live within the boundaries of the Shire she lives in the Old Forest, but the wives (Ent wives) told her that she must go for a song on the wind tells of a sorrow as great and vast as her forest.

Chapter one: Of the Hobbit that lives in the Forest

For as long as he could remember she had been his sister, however Bilbo refused to venture into the forest to visit her, it was not right, he was a Baggins and Baggins live in a respectable hobbit hole. Not a dirty, grungy hole but one that was carved and clean, a home his father Bungo Baggins made for his wife Belladonna Took.

Linda however was a wild hobbit and he had not seen since the Fell winter took there mother several years earlier, his father Bungo had cast her out as she reminded him to much of his wife, and no matter how Bilbo begged his father he would not allow the fauntling back into the shire.

It was four years after the passing of his mother that his father sunk so far into his grief that he wandered into the Barrow Downs, he know that as his sister came then and told him of it, they had went to stop him but when they found him they could not wake him, and it was Linda who he had not seen in years that had pulled him from the Downs when he started to fall to the haunting music. He had offered her a place at Bag End but she shook her head no and smiled softly at him as the wandered back to the now empty hobbit hole.

It was as dawn was shining down that he took in the changes in her, her hair was wild and down to her knees ( a most un-suitable length for a hobbit) in black with strands as bright as the purest spun gold and her eyes show like the purest silver (or mithril though he know it not) no she was NOT a respectable hobbit. Her cloths unusual as they seemed to be made to hunt or fight in, clinging to her form and the sleeves to part at the shoulders showing most unusual markings.

When they reached the enterance to the Shire she patted his shoulder and wandered back into the Old Forest with the woods creaking almost as if in welcome. It was then that Bilbo thought that she was only 15 years of age and should not be on her own but he dare not enter the woods, what would the other shire folk think?

~the Valar

To them it was just a blink of an eye that they had stumbled upon the young child within the Old Forests of Middle earth, she for it was a young girl seemed to be shivering to death with the young ent wives worrying endlessly over the child.

It was this fact alone that had them acting for the three of them that wondered the land from time to time each blessing the child who slept within the forest.

Orome placed a kiss upon her brow blessing her with an understanding of plants and animals so that she may speak with the wives in their own language and she would always have companions.

Vana, wife of Orome blessed the small child with the longevity of their other children the elves and of the languages of the other races. So that though she found no happiness now may she find it in the future.

The last to bestow her gift was Nessa who bestowed her on her grace and beauty, to help her though tough times and a way of expression.

However what none of them realized was that their gifts mixed and bore themselves in more ways then they though for Oromes gift mixed with Nessa's and of the earth the most beautiful thing was the gold and mithril buried deep in the ground. Vana's gift mixed with her husbands and not only human languages but also animals and pant languages were learned.

And though Varda did not wander with her brother and sisters she to gave a blessing from the Valar, she blessed the child with a small amount of magic to get her through the winter days and able to ignore the call of evil.

Though all of this the child slept, unaware that she was now a blessed child of the Valar, and though time may pass she would not age as her brother did.

~Within the Forests

Linda knew she would not be accepted, after all she had lived with them for 10 years before being banished, it was only luck that she had run into the Ent Wives who were more than happy to be taking care of a young one. They were the ones who taught her, for not many know but Ent Wives could take on a spirit form when needed, this was how she was taught to hunt and fight for the wives told her that the would was not always peaceful.

During her third year within the forest she was able to see her cousins, a pair of Took brothers running from farmer Maggots crops, again, they would never learn, it was during that time that she saw her father wandering in a daze, she would get him turned back and would keep an eye out and so it continued for a year until the night she did not see him pass as she was out on a hunt.

This was the day she saw Bilbo for the first time in four years, they would have yearly visits to the edge of the downs making sure the markers were in place and a wreath of flowers placed there. It would be another 5 years before she ventured back with in the Shire boundaries, for a sorrowful song drew her.

It was this song that drew her to the steps of Bag-end and had her slipping in the door, still dressed in gown made of silk her brother had given her the year before in a deep rich blue, her bow over one shoulder, her small petit form going un-noticed, that is until her brother stepped back into the hall.


End file.
